


Rewrite the Stars

by BeanieBaby



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Awkward Boners, Body Swap, Canon Divergence, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Peter is 17, Peter is lactose-intolerant, Plot-heavy, Protective Wade Wilson, Secret Crush, Special Forces Wade, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-04 17:18:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15151931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeanieBaby/pseuds/BeanieBaby
Summary: High schooler Peter Parker starts swapping bodies with one Lieutenant Wade Wilson who happens to be stationed out in Afghanistan twelve years in the past. Meanwhile, a masked mercenary by the name of Deadpool begins terrorizing New York City.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I saw the anime movie Your Name (2016), or Kimi no Na wa (君の名は) with a friend. This came to me in a fit of feverish inspiration. I don't know if I want to write more or if there's any interest in reading more. I just had to post it.
> 
> The premise of the movie that you need to know for this fic is that the two protagonists start switching bodies for a day with each other, and at first, they think it’s a dream, but soon it becomes obvious that it's not, and they start leaving each other written messages on their arms, etc. They kind of fall in love along the way. 
> 
> Highly recommend the movie. 
> 
> SEE END NOTES FOR WARNINGS

Peter woke to a revolting taste in his mouth. Groaning at the pounding headache raging inside his skull, he sat up slowly and blinked down at his naked torso with its unmarred skin and beautiful six-pack from the gods. Last night, he’d had the weirdest dream about being shot in the stomach. There had been a lot of crying and begging for his aunt, if memory served correct.

Peter jumped when May knocked loudly on his bedroom door, her muffled yell of “Peter, you’re going to be late for school!” penetrating the wooden barrier and setting off alarm bells inside his head.

“Coming,” The teenager shouted back and flipped out of bed. Something cold and smooth crumpled beneath his left foot. Peter looked down and felt his jaw drop.

His room was littered with…empty beer cans. Dozens. Of. Them.

_What the hell?_

“You’d better not be masturbating in there, kid!” Aunt May was back for her second round of wake-up duty, “I swear to God if you miss the bus because you’re jacking off, I will kill you, Peter.”

Peter jumped at the sound of her voice.

“I-I’m not!” Yelling a hurried reply, he ran over to the window and threw it open to let out some of that overwhelming stench. Then, Peter doused his room with air freshener and scrambled for his backpack. Cursing under his breath, he began shoving the empty beer cans inside. He had absolutely no memory of how they’d gotten into his bedroom in the first place. It didn’t make any sense. A quick sweep of the room revealed no lost valuables. Why would anyone break into his room in the middle of the night and drink enough alcohol to kill a grown man?

Speaking of dead men…

Peter dropped the backpack and ran into his small adjacent bathroom. Thankfully there was no corpse lying in his shower, but the sight of the toilet bowl, with its enticing porcelain-ness, suddenly made his stomach churn with nausea, and the next thing Peter knew, he was clutching said bowl and puking his guts out in a terrifying, burning spray of vomit.

Ah, so that was where all the beer went.

 

* * *

 

Wade woke in the intensive care unit back at base. He was hooked up to a whole bunch of beeping monitors and on the good stuff that made his limbs feel like the softest cotton candy. A blurry face appeared over him. He heard laughter and the person popped out of his line of vision again.

“Whaa fuuuuckkk haaa…haa,” He tried to ask. It came out slurred, like fussy infant speech.

“Wade,” Someone slapped his unshaven cheek, “you awake?”

“Murfff,” Wade protested.

“Dude, you got shot in the stomach,” The voice continued gleefully. It was Ross, Wade recognized, one of the numerous dipshits on his Special Forces team. “Still want your mommy?”

“What the fuck?” His mouth was finally collaborating. Thank God.

“His aunt,” Another mellower voice corrected, “he was crying for his aunt yesterday.”

“Bob?” Wade asked. What the hell were they going on about him crying? He hadn’t shed a single tear since he was twelve.

“Hey Wade,” Bob’s face came into view. To Wade’s horror, he took one of his bandaged hands and said apologetically, “the captain and I tried to contact this Aunt May of yours, but we came up empty. Sorry about that. You can write her a card when you’re out of the ICU.”

Shuddering, Wade shook Bob off. “What the shit, Bobbers. I don’t have an aunt. Why’m I lying here?”

“You took three bullets to the stomach, son,” A gruff voice said and he turned to stare in disbelief at their CO, Samuels.

“Yeah, it was like you were having a stroke or some shit,” Ross barged in, “suddenly forgot how to use a fucking rifle in the middle of the mission and had a mental breakdown, complete with screaming and kicking. Also, I think you peed yourself when you got shot.”

“You on drugs, Wilson?” Samuels asked.

“Fuck no,” Wade yelled. “I don’t remember any of the shit y’all are talking about.”

“Convenient,” Ross rolled his eyes.

Bob was the only one who looked disappointed at this, “wait, so you don’t recall saying that I was a great friend and the light of your life?”

“No, I do not, Bob,” Wade growled.

"Oh." Bob’s shoulders slumped. Ross snickered.

“Alright, leave Wilson alone,” Samuels ordered the other two soldiers. Then, he added under his breath, “I’m going to check with the doctors if he’s having an allergic reaction to the anesthetic.”

“Shit, this is some strong stuff,” Wade muttered to himself and sagged back onto the cot. He didn’t remember a single thing from yesterday’s mission.

The only thing he could recall was a bizarre nightmare where he’d woken up as this freakishly short kid who couldn’t get hammered no matter how hard Wade had tried…

 

* * *

 

“Peter, why didn’t you come to school yesterday?” Were the first words out of Ned’s mouth when Peter spotted him waiting next to Peter’s locker.

“Wait, what? I didn’t come to school?” He asked, “Are you sure? Because I distinctly remember Flash knocked over that vial of blue dye onto his crotch in chemistry...”

“Dude, that was the day before,” Ned gave him a dark look and leaned close, “This is like super sketch, man. Are you missing a kidney? Did you wake up in an empty storage bunker? Were you kidnapped by aliens? _Does your ass hurt?”_

The bell for first period went off.

“No, Ned, that’s not— ” Peter groaned and quickly grabbed his books from his locker. “Look, I’ll tell you at lunch, okay? Save me a seat.”

“Peter, you didn’t answer my question!” Ned bellowed down the hall after him, “DOES YOUR ASS HURT?”

The pretty brunet girl hurrying past Peter shot him a weird look. Face burning with embarrassment and stomach rumbling from missing breakfast, Peter hurried into first period US History.

 

* * *

 

Wade woke up short again.

It was that same dream, same bedroom, same wonky Albert Einstein poster taped over the ceiling along with a whole bunch of Star Wars shit. Whoever this midget was, Wade was pretty sure he was a nerd. He pulled the sheets off his stomach and peered down at the kid’s toned abdomen. Well, a nerd with a six-pack. Good on him. His eyes flicked lower to the noticeable bulge tenting his wrinkled Batman boxers.

Well this was new.

He got up with a groan and hobbled over to the little bathroom, ‘his’ morning wood bobbing uncomfortably between his legs along the way. The face that peered back at him was the same as the one in his last psychotic episode. Soft, puppy-dog eyes that was a sure hit with the ladies, floppy brown hair and thin lips set in a relatively attractive face. The kid would probably grow into his looks eventually, but he was just a freaking baby at the moment. Wade sincerely hoped the kid still had a couple of inches to grow because while his current height was okay for girl standards, Wade had a good four inches on him and the kid’s vantage point was fucking terrible. It was like living on the ground floor in a skyscraper, if he were to be completely honest. Scratching absently at his left armpit, Wade got into the tiny shower and pulled the shower head out of its socket in the wall.

“Well, here it goes,” He muttered down at someone else’s junk and turned the ice-cold water up to max. He inhaled sharply and bit down on his tongue to muffle his shocked yell, “Kitten farts!”

“Peter, breakfast!” Someone screamed.

Shivering, Wade took a few quick steadying breaths and glanced down.

Erection dead? Check.

Cursing softly under his breath, Wade brushed his teeth, washed his face and emptied his bladder. He tiptoed back into the room and put on some clothes in the kid’s closet. A wrinkled red and blue onesy tumbled off the top shelf inside the closet. Wade picked it up and saw the weird little black goggles sewn clumsily into the mask-piece.

“This is one fucked-up luchador costume,” He snorted and tossed it haphazardly over the bed, “whoever is giving me these weird-ass dreams, can I put in a request? Next time I wanna wake up in a body attached to tits and a vagina. I won’t even go out, I swear, I’ll just play with myself all day.”

He pulled open the door and blinked at the sight of the attractive brunet woman in the kitchen.

“Ok, please let this be the start of a porno,” Wade muttered before grinning and calling out, “hey sexy. What’s your name?”

He did not expect her to charge over, grab him by the jaw, and pry his mouth open to sniff his breath.

“Are you drunk?” The strange woman demanded sharply. “Did Ned put you up to it? I need to talk to his parents. I swear to God, if you are drinking, Peter Parker, I will kill you.”

So, not a porno. Fuck.

“Mom?” Wade chanced a guess, his face still crushed between the woman’s palms. Somewhere outside, a car horn honked three times.

“Oh, shit! The bus is here!” She let go of him abruptly and shoved a still-warm breakfast sandwich into his chest. “Go, go, go! You can’t be late again!”

“Go where?” Wade yelled, gobsmacked.

“School!” She yelled back and frogmarches him out into the hallway, “grab your backpack!”

In less than ten seconds, she had him out the door with the kid’s books and the lukewarm sandwich still clutched in one hand. In a daze, Wade walked into the elevator, out the lobby, and into the streets of what looked like New York City. Having lived most of his life in Canada, he’d only been to the Big Apple twice. He was gawking at the line of industrious roaches marching down the sidewalk and disappearing down a manhole cover when the horn honked again, and an ancient white-haired man wearing tinted old-person glasses poked his head out of the school bus and wheezed:

“Get your ass in the bus, Parker!”

Scowling, Wade went.

 

* * *

 

The weirdness continued.

Peter had no recollection of leaving his home-made Spider Suit just lying in crumpled heap at the foot of his bed like garbage, but that was what he woke up to. There were also greasy stains that smelled distinctly like old cheese in his Physic’s notebook. Someone had scribbled an entire page of the word FUCK and slipped it inside his backpack. He was missing the notes for yesterday’s classes, and when Peter got to his locker the next morning, someone (very likely the same person) had written his combination code out in sharpie on the door and drawn a truly ginormous hairy penis next to it. The words _Penis Parker_ were written in purple underneath the crude drawing in different handwriting. That second part was probably Flash Thompson, but he had no idea who the first perpetrator was.

Peter did his best to erase most of the writing with his sleeve, but somehow it just blurred the penis and made it look even bigger. A couple of football players snickered loudly when they saw him rubbing furiously at it. Peter ignored them and hurriedly opened his locker. Thankfully, there was a roll of tape inside that he used to cover up most of the damage. The downside was that he now had a glaringly obvious dick-like shape outlined in tape on the back of his locker.

“Peter, are you sure you’re ok?” Ned asked during lunch, “you’ve been acting really weird as of late. Does it have to do with your alien abduction? All the websites say you lose your memory when you get probed.”

“I wasn’t abducted by aliens, Ned,” Peter shook his head, “honestly, I don’t know what’s going on. I keep dreaming about this guy..."

"Like as in a...sex dream?" Ned asked cautiously, twin spots of pink appearing on his pudgy cheeks.

"No, he's a soldier I think," Peter groaned, suppressing the strong urge to pull on his hair in sheer frustration. Ned's brain was just so fucking weird some times. "The first time, he got shot in the field and now he’s lying in the hospital somewhere.”

“Do you know what he looks like?” Ned asked, taking a bite out of his turkey sandwich. Peter ate a baby carrot and thought hard.

“No, as a matter of fact. It’s like I was him, you know? Like Call of Duty or something,” Peter said, “except it’s like the retired veteran version at the moment because my avatar spends all his time lying in bed, flirting with the nurses, scratching his balls, and chatting with a guy named Bob…”

“That’s weirdly specific,” Ned said.

“Yeah, and I had to apologize to Bob last time because he said I hurt his feelings with my mean words or something,” Peter muttered.

“Wait, you said he got shot,” Ned suddenly said, “did you feel it? Were you like in his body when it happened?”

“Yeah,” Peter nodded vigorously. “It was so real I freaked out and cried, I think.”

“Dude, seriously? That’s so embarrassing,” Ned gave him a highly unimpressed look.

Peter rolled his eyes, “you try getting shot three times in the stomach. That shit hurt! Also, I think I peed myself, or him. I peed him, since technically it was his body.”

“You’re probably just projecting, man,” Ned assured him. “I mean, we’re covering WWII in US History right now. Maybe all that reading’s finally gone to your head, bro. You know what, we should go out tomorrow night. It’ll be a nice break. I heard Liz’s throwing a party at her house.”

“Wait, really?” His pulse skyrocketed. Peter couldn’t help but sneak a look at the object of his affections. She was in the middle of an animated conversation with a group of girlfriends. As if sensing Peter’s stare, Liz turned, and for a fraction of a second, their eyes met. She smiled and tucked a long lock of hair behind her left ear.

Peter dropped his carton of almond milk and the spell broke.

“Dude!” Ned yelped, flinching back at the spray of white liquid.

“S-sorry,” Peter apologized. When he finally finished mopping up the spilt milk, Liz was long gone.

 

* * *

 

The fourth time Wade woke up in Peter’s body, he had a feeling it was no longer a dream. For one thing, he had been off the drugs and painkillers for two days now and had started on the laborious process of physical therapy. For another, he didn’t believe in recurring dreams, not when it didn’t involve a couple of naked chicks and a bottomless jar of Nutella. Now that was a dream he didn’t mind having on an endless loop for the rest of his living days. And lastly, Wade was sure his limited imagination could not come up with the sleek StarkPhones people were carrying around and the eyesore that was Avengers Tower standing smack-dab in the middle of downtown Manhattan like America’s ugliest strap-on.

His suspicions were confirmed when he finally remembered to check the kid’s computer for the date and saw that it was 2018, twelve years into the fucking future where he was from. That revelation led to a mild mental breakdown and Wade had to go sit in a corner of the bathroom and breath for a while. When he eventually calmed down, he crawled back out, grabbed Peter’s computer and spent the rest of the day Googling body swapping technology.

 

* * *

 

Come Wednesday morning, Peter woke to May’s angry face hovering inches from his.

“Your principal called me this morning, Peter,” She growled, “about an incident that happened yesterday at school. He wants to have a meeting with us.”

The meeting turned out to be about Peter’s recent poor attendance rate and problematic behavior. He’d been suspended for two days. On the drive back and with Aunt May’s angry rant in the background, an idea suddenly occurred to Peter: what if his dreams weren’t actually dreams?

“—don’t know what's going on, if this is a joke or just a phase of teenage angst, but I’m here if you want to talk. You know that, right?” May’s tone had softened. There was so much concern in her tired face when Peter turned guiltily to face his aunt.

“I’m sorry, May,” He said quietly, mind still racing with the possibilities, “I guess I’m kind of going through something.”

"I’m always here for you, Peter,” She pinched Peter's cheek affectionately, “but you’re grounded for a whole week starting today, mister.”

May headed off to work shortly after dropping him off at the apartment. Peter bolted to his room the moment the door clicked shut after her and pull out his laptop. The teenager stared at the search history that popped up for a long, long time.

_Huh._

That night before going to bed, Peter decided to test his theory.

 

* * *

 

The next time it happened, there was something written on the kid’s left palm in blue ink.

It simply said — **Hello, Wade. I’m Peter.**

Wade stared at it. Strangely, the confirmation of his wacky theories was actually comforting. He wasn’t going crazy, it was just the shitty world around him. Glancing over at the calendar on the wall, Wade noticed that Peter had drawn a smily face around today’s date. His amused grin quickly turned to a grimace as he slipped out of bed and noticed the eager erection between Peter’s legs.

“Good God, I forgot how insanely annoying puberty was,” Wade scratched absently at a buttock and ambled over to the shower.

May took him on a nature walk in Central Park later that day. Apparently, his unorthodox behavior had landed the kid a two-day suspension. Despite the twinge of guilt, Wade actually enjoyed the trip a lot. Peter’s aunt was smart as a whip and easy on the eye. There was even a chimichanga cart parked conveniently in a street corner. He hadn’t had a taste of Mexican food since his unit got assigned to Afghanistan two years ago.

“Slow down, Peter,” May laughed when Wade inhaled the first one in under fifteen seconds. “There’s more where that came from.”

He ended up eating five whole chimichangas, two chicken tacos and a giant milkshake from Dairy Queen.

Before going to bed that night, Wade grabbed a black sharpie and wrote on the kid’s right leg:

**You really need to get laid or pound one out, kid. I’m sick of having to put Little Peter down like a rabid dog every morning. It’s getting sad. — W.**

 

* * *

 

Peter ran for the toilet the moment he opened his eyes. The wet fart that ripped out of his ass a mere second later made his eyes water, its overwhelming stench quickly filling the tiny bathroom. Peter groaned as his stomach rumbled like an old tractor engine and diarrhea tore out of his body like a shit torpedo.

_What had Wade done to him yesterday?_

Then, Peter saw the note on his leg.

That motherfucker.

 

* * *

 

**If you use my body to eat any more unsanitary food, I’m gonna hug Bob and tell him he’s your best friend, asshole. PS: Congrats on making a full recovery! Left you a little present btw :) — P.**

The words were written across his abs the next day. Also, Peter had colored in Wade’s nipples with a green glitter marker and drawn boobs over his pectorals. Rivera shot him a weird look when Wade flopped out of his bunk, clutching his newly healed midriff and cackling so hard tears came into his eyes. The kid's got balls, Wade’ll give him that.

“You ok, Wilson?” Rivera asked.

Wade ran a hand over his face and chuckled, “never been better.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in this AU, Civil War does not happen. Neither does the Sokovia thing, therefore, Tony is still cheerfully co-existing with the Avengers. 
> 
> Also, Frank Castle and Billy Russo make an appearance!
> 
> The wiki doesn't say much about MCU Wade's military career, so I read a whole bunch of threads, most suggest that he was in the Navy or Marines, so I went with that.

With no cure in sight, they settled into something of a stable schedule after making first contact. Wade would mark his days in Peter’s body with red crosses on the giant laminated calendar hanging on the boy’s bedroom wall. Peter would put the day’s To-Do-List in the Google calendar on his phone every night before he went to bed. Without that kind of tech on Wade’s side, he’d resorted to leaving Peter daily tips scratched over the pages of a second-hand harlequin novel he’d picked up in a flea market in Ho Chi Minh City a few years back. The body graffiti, however, continued between the two of them.

A few days into the new schedule, Wade found out about Peter’s side job as Spider-Man.

 **So, you run around in a hand-stitched onesy** **and fight crime, huh? Your fat friend Ned showed me a YouTube vid. I recognized the ‘stume in your closet. Thought you were secretly a Mexican wrestler. #disappointed — W.**

Peter totally regretted giving Wade permission to download the Twitter app onto his StarkPhone.

**Shit, did you say anything to him? I’ve been trying to only do patrols when I’m occupying my body so you don’t have to go through the trouble. Sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. PS: Body-shaming is bad, Wade. — P.**

After the next switch, Wade wrote:

**Stark showed up today. He knows about you. I knocked him out. I think. But if he doesn’t wake in the next couple of hours, what should I do with the body? #Canada — W.**

Peter nearly had a heart attack when he woke up to that particular message and ended up wasting a good part of his morning frantically digging through the dumpsters near his building for Tony Stark’s dead corpse. After being chased off by three separate hobos, he finally gave up and went to school where he spent the entire afternoon floating around in a constant state of fear and getting complaints about smelling like trash. However, it was not the New York police waiting for him in the parking lot when classes ended, it was Tony Stark himself, looking a little rumpled and supporting a massive shiner. His driver, a stout, beefy man that Tony cheerfully introduced as Happy, growled and cracked his knuckles warningly at the 17-year-old. He certainly didn’t look happy to Peter. Whoever named him that must've been super wasted at the time.

Peter apologized profusely for the violence, but Stark seemed to be in high spirits despite being assaulted by a teenager last night. He gave Peter his contact card and offered him a ride back home.

That night, head still reeling from the potentially life-changing conversation with Tony freaking Stark himself, Peter grabbed a washable marker off his desk and wrote on the inside of his arm:

 **Mr. Stark asked me to join the Young Avengers Program SHIELD is co-heading with the X-Men, Wade! What do you think? It’s run by Captain America and a whole bunch of other handpicked superhero instructors. Mr. Stark made me a new suit, so I won’t have to wear that old one anymore! PS: Stop using weird hashtags. PPS: Plz plz study for my English Lit exam. I wrote out the main points in a doc labeled READ ME** **WADE.doc on my desktop. The test falls on one of your days, so start cramming ASAP. — P.**

Four days later, Peter saw the latest message from Wade, scrawled on his right calf:

**I aced that motherfucker, kiddo! I deserve a reward. Be warned, I’m taking you out for Indian food with May tomorrow night. I’ll remember to put an adult diaper on you before I clock out. PS: As for the program, I know this shit is corny as hell, but follow your heart. It won’t lead you wrong. — W.**

The second bout of explosive diarrhea was no better than the first, but Peter distracted himself from most of the intestinal discomfort by staring at Wade’s message on the toilet. He’d snapped a picture of the messy hand-written words before washing it off. Wade had told him to follow his heart. Peter smiled, something hot and fluttery settling in his chest as he re-read the words for the umpteenth time. God, he wanted to meet Wade Wilson in person.

Later, he wrote back:

**My ass hurts. I think I pooped out a quarter of my intestines. I hate you so much. PS: I've officially accepted the offer to join the Young Avengers! So excited! PPS: I saw the Winter Soldier today and he has a super badass metal arm. PPPS: I think he and Captain America are fucking. Don’t tell anyone. — P.**

In response, Wade bought him a giant tube of fast acting hemorrhoid-relief cream. It was clutched in his left hand when he woke in his own body the day after, unopened, along with the note:

 **Bob swears by this brand. Sorry about the diarrhea.** **Can’t promise there won’t be more in the future. Till next time, little man. — W.**

Peter flopped back onto his bed and smothered his horrified groan into the pillow.

 

* * *

 

Physical therapy was a shit to go through. Thankfully, none of the bullets hit anything major. He was young and strong, so the road to recovery was mostly painless. But nothing could change how mind-numbingly boring it was to stay at base while his team went off doing God knows what. And the diet they’d put him on was nothing short of hell, which was why he couldn’t resist pigging out every time he woke up in Peter’s body. It had taken him a few fumbling tries before he’d caught on that the kid was lactose-intolerant. Peter had nudged Wade in the right direction _just a little_ by writing the words in all caps across his own forehead one night before going to sleep. The episodes of explosive diarrhea decreased exponentially after that.

“God, this is _so good_ ,” Wade shoved another one of the tiny desserts into his already full mouth and let out a loud, muffled moaned of pure delight, “it’s like better than sex.”

“What do you know about sex, Parker,” The mutant kid with the world’s longest name ever muttered sarcastically, rolling her dark eyes at his best imitation of a chipmunk stocking up for winter and pulling her pink-haired girlfriend out of the zone of crumb-projectiles spraying from Wade’s, no Peter’s face. Right, he was pretending to be Peter at the moment, Wade reminded himself, which was even better because he could stuff his face and not gain a single pound.

“It ain't better than this, Sinéad O’Connor, I’ll tell ya that,” Wade said, chewing furiously. Negasonic flipped him off and left him to enjoy his food orgy.

“Peter, the rest of the class is waiting,” An amused voice said from behind a few minutes later. Wade, who by then had cleared the table of all food-related items and was in the middle of wrestling a fresh silver tray of lemon tarts from one of the tower’s employees, paused and turned to find Captain America watching him with a wry smile. Standing next to him, Negasonic lifted an eyebrow. Yukio grinned behind her hand. She was the only one who took a lemon tart when Wade offered up his stolen dessert tray in the elevator ride down to the training room.

Wade kind of wanted to adopt Yukio.

The day’s lesson, taught by Cap, was on hand-to-hand combat. Wade zoned out five minutes in, but Steve Rogers did allow him to keep eating the desserts during class, so Wade did his best to come back to the lecture when he finished the last tart and not-so-casually wiped his sticky, sugar-crusted fingers on a nearby white-haired girl’s cape.

“Peter,” Steve called suddenly, and the gaggle of teenagers parted like the Red Sea.

“Yo,” Wade burped. Yukio giggled.

“I need a partner for the next part,” He explain, still smiling, “come up here, son.”

Wade did as he was told and walked over.

“So, I am going to attack you and I want you to use the defensive maneuvers we just went over. Can you do that, Pete?” Steve asked, rolling up his sleeves, “also, to make this more realistic, I’m not going to tell you what to do. If at any point, you want to pause, just say the word. Ok?”

“Sure,” He nodded. It was pretty basic stuff. Back at the academy, hand-to-hand combat had been one of Wade’s highest scoring sections in all of his performance evaluations, second only after marksmanship. His experience, coupled with Peter’s superhuman strength, sent Captain America flying into the padded wall of the training room. A few of the kids behind him gasped loudly.

In hind sight, Wade probably shouldn’t have done that, because Steve picked himself back up and narrowed his eyes, “you’ve had formal training before, Peter?”

It wasn’t really a question. Not the way he said it.

“Umm…” Scratching at Peter’s jaw, Wade shrugged vaguely, “I watch a lot of anime?”

Steve grinned, delighted, “show me what else you know.”

Well, Captain America _did_ ask nicely.

So, Wade showed him.

 

* * *

 

Peter really liked the Young Avengers Program, dubbed YAP for short by Tony. They met mostly on the weekends, but also some weeknights too. He also managed to secure an internship in Tony Stark’s robotics lab as well. At the moment, Peter’s lessons consisted mostly of combat training with Captain America, superhero response protocol lectures with Coulson, and one-on-one private simulations designed by Tony Stark to help each kid hone their individual powers. He’d also sat in on a super passionate seminar on Mutant Rights from one scowling Erik Lehnsherr. Ellie, or Negasonic as she preferred to be called, and Yukio spent the whole lecture telling Peter about Magneto and his weird love/hate relationship with Professor X, so Peter didn’t really learn as much as he probably should have.

“Dude, you are awesome,” The blue-skinned kid who could teleport, Kurt, gushed excitedly the Sunday after Wade had signed out, his barbed tail swinging from side to side as they made their way into the training room. “Can you teach me how to beat up Captain America too?”

“Teach you what?” Peter asked, bemused, as he took his place next to Storm.

“Alright, today we are going to be partnering off and spending our lesson sparring. I’ll be walking around and correcting everyone’s stances. So find a friend and get started,” Steve called to the handful of kids standing around. Peter turned to Kurt to ask if he wanted to partner up, but he’d already teleported over to the kid with the massive angel wings.

“Pete, over here,” Cap called him over to where he was standing with the Winter Soldier. He smiled kindly and said, “I don’t think I can teach you anything that you might not know already, so I asked Bucky to come in because he knows way more than I do. He’ll be your sparring partner today, kiddo.”

“Hello,” The Winter Soldier greeted quietly, his long brown hair pulled up into a hip man bun and metal arm glowing like molten silver under the light. He was wearing a white tank over faded army fatigues and black combat gloves.

“Uh, hi,” Peter replied politely before turning to Steve, “umm, what do you mean you can’t teach me anything that I don’t already know, Cap?”

“Peter’s small, but he packs quite a punch," Steve clapped Barnes on the back, “also, according to Stark, he’s got ‘mad skillz’ with a ‘z.’ Whatever that means.”

The Winter Soldier chuckled, “So, kind of like the you before the war?”

“Well, my stature plus the Hulk’s strength maybe,” Cap said with a beaming smile, “so don’t make the mistake of going easy on him like I did, Buck. Alright, I’m going to go supervise the other students. Have fun you two.”

“Wait, what?” Completely flummoxed, Peter gaped as Captain America winked at him and walked over to Teddy, who had a struggling Billy in a headlock.

What the hell was going on? Wade hadn’t mentioned any of this to him!

Peter didn’t have much time to dwell on things because a second later, the metal fist that swung out of nowhere dropped him like a sack of bricks.

 

* * *

 

“Parker, come on, kid, wake up.” 

Hands were slapping his cheeks gently when Peter’s brain slowly came back online. Tony Stark’s worried face was magnified in all its goateed glory. He was staring up at the billionaire with his head pillowed on the man’s lap. Steve was the one slapping his cheek, his scrunched expression a mixture of concern and guilt. Bucky was hovering anxiously over Cap’s shoulder. The lights overhead were stabbing hot bolts of pain into Peter’s throbbing skull, so he groaned and buried his face into Mr. Stark’s dress shirt. This close, Iron Man smelled like expensive cologne and engine grease. 

“Jesus Christ, Rogers, Barnes almost killed my only YAP recruit! I know we got a bet going, but nobody told me it was gonna be this competitive!” Tony exclaimed, “kid’s probably got a concussion. Why on earth would you make them fight each other? Do you not remember that Barnes bashed your face in on that helicarrier all those years ago!” 

“I thought Peter might enjoy the challenge, you know, since he whooped my ass yesterday,” Steve hung his head. He looked like a sad golden retriever that had just been caught peeing on a beloved carpet. Peter would have laughed if his face didn’t hurt so much. 

“You really expect me to believe that?” Tony asked skeptically, “a skinny fifteen-year-old whooped your ass, you with your 220 pounds of pure super-soldier muscles and years of experience?” 

“Umm, Mr. Stark, I’m actually seventeen,” Peter clarified but nobody paid him any attention. 

“Yeah,” Steve nodded, exchanging a glance with the Winter Soldier, “yesterday during class. Everyone was there to see it happen.” 

The kids around them all murmured their agreement. 

_Goddamn it, Wade, you stupidly good-looking showoff,_ Peter thought furiously as Stark blinked down at him with raised eyebrows. 

“Well, how about that,” Tony murmured, his expression strangely impressed.

 

* * *

 

“Wade, this is Agent Orange,” Samuels introduced him to the man three days after Wade was cleared to head back into the field. He’d been called to Samuels’ office to discuss his new assignment, which Wade had taken to meaning their team’s new mission, but apparently he was totally mistaken.

“Sir, this here is my finest soldier, Lieutenant Wade Wilson,” His CO clapped Wade on the shoulder. Orange paid them no attention as he flipped leisurely through the files in his hands.

“Canadian, huh? Says here you dropped out of high school after just a year, son,” The man finally spoke.

Wade shrugged, “with all due respect, sir, school’s for pussies.”

One of the men standing behind Agent Orange snickered quietly at the words. Wade smirked, catching his amused gaze and and lifting his eyebrows in silent greeting.

“Just wanted to make sure you weren’t retarded or something,” Orange said cruelly as he looked over Wade like he was a piece of half-spoilt meat at the butcher’s and he was deciding whether spending the money was worth it.

“Don’t let his handsome looks fool you, the kid’s good,” Samuels said with the air of a proud father. Wade liked his CO. In fact, he liked almost all of his current teammates. They worked well together.

“I already have a pretty face in the team,” Agent Orange said dismissively and jerked a finger to the dark-haired man who’d chuckled at Wade’s words earlier. He _was_ pretty, in a high-class escort kind of way, with pale skin, neat hair, and clean clothes. He didn’t look like he belonged in a dirty tent in the middle of Afghanistan. The burly one on his left with the mud-encrusted combat boots and fatigues, now that one looked downright comfortable in this shit-hole.

“This is Frank Castle and Billy Russo,” Orange gestured to them, “you two, come meet your fellow marine.”

Billy shook his hand while Frank sort of just grunted like a caveman. When Agent Orange finished explaining what Operation Cerberus was, Wade glanced over at his old CO, unsure of what exactly was being asked of him here. Samuels escorted the trio out of his office before coming back inside.

“Here’s the thing, Wilson,” He said quietly, “you’re like a son to me, so if you don’t want to join them, I’ll do my best to decline. I want to keep you on my team, but Orange asked for you by name. I don’t know who put in the recommendation, but Ray Shoonover, your new CO if you choose to accept, was in the academy with me. He’s a man you can trust.”

“And Orange?” Wade asked.

“CIA, I don’t know much about him,” Samuels said honestly. “From what I know, Operation Cerberus acts as a counter-terrorism strike team. Think on it, son, you can tell me by the end of the week.”

 

* * *

 

**Why do you do it? The superhero thing? You’re just a kid. — W.**

Peter woke one day to find the short message scrawled on his arm. Wade usually left him super long paragraphs, to the point that Peter feared he was slowly being poisoned by how much pen ink was being slathered onto his body on a daily basis. It was a good question and he spent the entire day thinking of a reply. Homecoming was just a few weeks away and the school was already starting to prepare. Peter spent his afternoon helping out the decoration committee with the promotion posters for the Homecoming Dance.

That night, after finishing all of his homework and taking a nice long shower, he picked up the pen and wrote:

**Because when you can do the thing I can but don’t, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you. So, I guess that’s why I do it. — P.**

 

* * *

 

Wade didn’t wait until the end of the week to give them his reply. Agent Orange was in Samuels’ office when he went inside.

“So?” He asked, folding his arms over his chest.

“Yeah, I’m in,” Wade said.

Agent Orange smirked, his smug satisfaction sending pinpricks of discomfort through Wade, but he ignored it in favor of clasping the CIA agent’s extended hand.

“Welcome to the Cerberus Squad, Mr. Wilson.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave me some love! :)

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: Wade is an adult in this fic. Peter is his MCU canonical age, so probs 17ish in 2018? Technically, where I am that is considered being able to give consent, but I’m just going to tag his age just to be safe. There's no explicit stuff in this, but Peter does eventually start crushing on Wade first. Wade is around 23 years old during his special forces days if you would like a reference.


End file.
